Just Another High School Story!

She announced the news about the 'switch', while Ethan and Mindy were there in the room, she didn't ask Ethan about the presentation, she knew he hadn't done it, her heart told her that the guy she loved wouldn't really ever try to ruin her, people don't change that easily, she wanted to believe that so she did not even ask, she trusted him. He didn't say anything, he was ashamed, even though, it was Mindy who'd been the culprit but he hadn't called her out. Maybe she did something he never could, hurt her. He was upset though, Leah should have asked him, he'd have told her the truth, at least, if she asked he'd confirm one thing for sure, and that was that she, at least, had some lingering feelings, and expectations from him, but she didn't, instead, she walked in after having a good lunch, with a smile on her face that was beautiful, original, she was not going to waste a second being someone else anymore, this was her chance to be herself, every moment from now on, she thus spoke into the microphone, "I, Leah Sanders, am stepping down from the position of head girl to take care of my health, and Mindy Allen is going to take over now. I hope you have an awesome break, guys, I'm sorry, I've not said anything about my situation until now, I'll talk to y'all on the forum, let's keep moving forward, and be strong together! Love y'all!" Then she removed her headphones, and her eyes fell upon the stickers that were sparkling, she'd pasted the letter's E&L on the microphone, she was not sure why Ethan hadn't ripped it off yet.

And so started their summer break, a most natural one, but kinda super-natural for Leah, her clock was ticking and ticking, different, she was excited to change, and the first day of her 'journey', she was willing to work hard. Running was really hard, she'd only been able to do 3 miles a day, each day, but that was before, when she wasn't drinking water properly, or eating right, she realised that running so that you could earn breakfast felt awesome, she didn't want to rush through, "Slow and steady wins the race!" she told herself, and resisted the urge to overdo her workouts, she used to run and work out heavily, then she'd feel dead for somedays and it would be impossible to give her best the next day. She stopped that, she was going to try everything in the book, and test things out for herself. If it was suitable, the thing went into the list of to-be habits, and if it did not, well, what is the trash can for? Just because certain people used certain methods to get better and recover, she wasn't going to do what they did if it didn't work out. She woke up at 7 and realised that she felt energetic, but feeling great on your first day is kind of a given, anyone can be energetic on their first day, could she last was the real question? She zipped up her jacket, put on her AirPods, and fresh air, here comes Leah.

She ran happily, sure, it was hard, it felt fulling though, there is nothing sweet and fragrant like the sweat of hard-work, as soon as she stopped thinking that working out was something she needed to do, and started thinking that it was something she wanted to do, it made her feel good. And she realised that many kids were sleeping right now, it was a bit quiet, she liked this feeling, rather than having Ethan unhappily trail behind her, and having to stop after a mile, then do the rest of the run lousily just because he insisted they do it together was a little too much. She was running freely, without burdens or guilt, every single time she ran with Ethan, she felt guilty, it was obviously something that she did not want to do, so why on earth was she dragging him along, he wouldn't remain either, he wanted to help her but he was just holding her down, maybe letting go right now would be a good thing. For the both of them.

She was like the beach being washed by the waves of the ocean, Ethan, being the ocean was displacing her, again and again, she needed to be steady. The waves needed to push back a little.

She finished 3.5 miles that day, and happily came back in. Her dad was out for a business trip, and Linda was sleeping so she had the time to learn something. She began to cook, she felt a weird guilt when eating eggs, she felt like all foods were bad, but then she'd looked up the benefits of eggs, and realised that sweet heaven, she'd been missing out on something delicious. But there was another problem, she wasn't so sure about carbohydrates, initially, she'd cut them out of her diet on a whim, completely banned carbs, but on further research, she was a smart student, you know, of course, she had to use her talents for something useful, she found that she needed carbs, she was a biology student, obviously, she had to read up on carbs, their calorific value, but to make it simple, you don't want to overeat, but you don't want to undercut either, if you're doing cardio, running, working out in general, if you're active then obviously your body needs food, don't eat an apple a day, because an apple a day doesn't keep a doctor away, when you're eating only that damn apple to live, it invites a doctor in, therefore, as scared as she was, she beat her stupid streak of not eating carbs by eating bread, she toasted it to eat it with an omelette, she didn't like the taste of egg whites but she trusted the omelette, to replace 'unhealthy things', she had used olive oil, she was now eating a full breakfast, but before that she didn't forget to do one important thing, to drink water. She squirted a lemon, yellow, juicy, and sour into her glass, and gulped it like she was drinking from the fountain of life, so refreshing, rather than using apple vinegar, she'd been using apple vinegar since a long time, she had gotten bored of it, and sometimes forgot to drink, then she'd sulk over forgetting, and not eat at all, to make up for her mistake, she smacked her head at the thought, and let it live in the dark kitchen closet, there was a bad habit associated with the bottle, damn the bottle, forsake it, and she'd just drink something fresh instead, therefore, apple vinegar went out and was replaced by lemonade, freshly made, self-squirted lemonade. At least, the bad memories wouldn't come back when she looked at the lively, lovely lemon. Next, she put it all in a plate, and suddenly got the urge to look up how many calories what she was eating had.

She shut her phone down. Switched it off, "Die you monster!" she screamed at it, being dramatic, but oh well, and then she dug in, she was really hungry, and the meal was satisfactory, most importantly, she didn't feel like she was losing her mind thinking about food, she was full, and she was ready to get on to do other things. She decided to study for a couple of hours. And after studying, she realised that it was lunch time, already. Here came the real test. She had not eaten anything after breakfast, just drank water but now she had to eat another meal. For someone who was the survive-on-one-apple-a-day kind of person, this was a challenge. Her mind became this battlefield with the battle between two thoughts, "Should I just not eat? Maybe tomorrow?" and "I want to eat. I feel hungry." She had two options right now, like most bulimics do, or for that matter anyone who's facing a problem does, to run away and hide, or face the problem head on, if you run away, it doesn't mean you're not strong, neither does it mean you're not ready, that just means that you need to be a little patient, and keep trying, dealing with these problems is similar to learning a choreography, you feel amazed the first time you see it, then you try it, and can't successfully remember all the moves, you miss out, but you keep trying until one day, you can do the steps almost automatically, with your eyes closed, there are always moves that are difficult and you can't learn or do in one try, but you get up after falling and messing up, you try again, and just like that it becomes your problem, you feel like giving up but you can't, because just like difficult dance moves can be learnt slowly, and done properly, or understanding Doppler's effect can seem like child's play, after trying to learn of course, and keeping at it, until you get it, similarly, life's problems can be faced slowly, those who aren't afraid of anything aren't courageous, because usually, humans-- creatures, all kinds of creatures, not just humans, but even bacteria-- are afraid of something, it might be stupid to someone else, but our fears are real for us, the key isn't to ignore it, because you don't know what tomorrow will bring, there's one thing to know for certain though, that you aren't going anywhere, you can teach yourself to stand up to your fears, it doesn't mean that you'll never fear the thing again, you might, but you'll know after trying to face it just once, your confidence increases and slowly, but surely you forget that you ever feared the thing in the first place.